WASHINGTON – GLSEN’s Director of Public Policy, Nathan Smith, thanked the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) for its leadership and work to protect and ensure the success of all students, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning students (LGBTQ), upon Thursday’s release of OCR’s Fiscal Year 2016 Report to the President and Secretary of Education and Achieving Simple Justice: Highlights of Activities, Office for Civil Rights 2009-2016.
“GLSEN is proud to have worked closely with the U.S. Department of Education throughout the Obama Administration to successfully advance safe and affirming learning environments for LGBTQ students nationwide. As is evident in the Department’s reports, the last several years have seen monumental and unprecedented progress, especially in anti-discrimination protections for transgender and gender nonconforming students.
“We applaud the Department’s commitment to working toward a public education system in which all students have access to a quality education and attend schools that are safe and affirming of who they are, and we call on the incoming administration to maintain these vital gains. No less than the very wellbeing of many LGBTQ students depends on it.”
The latest edition of GLSEN’s National School Climate Survey found that LGBTQ students who experienced discrimination and bullying and harassment at school were more than three times as likely to have missed school in the past month as those who did not, had lower GPAs than their peers, and had lower self-esteem and higher levels of depression.
